The Run DownThe Tampa farm took a big hit in the high-impact department with the graduation of Wil Myers and Chris Archer, and furthermore when Taylor Guerrieri went down to Tommy John surgery in July. What’s left is an organization that’s seemingly void of top shelf fantasy prospects. Even so, it’s probably unwise to sleep on this group — the Rays have a superb player development system that take its time with prospects, often churning out fantasy relevance from the places we’d least expect. There is plenty of potential in this organization, and even though it’s not the most exciting brand of potential, you can sure as shizz count on Tampa to get the most out of it.

Ryan Zimmerman is hitting the DL with a hamstring strain, and to replace him, the Nats are calling up their top prospect, Anthony Rendon. Rendon showed he was big league ready during spring training, and many wondered if he might begin the season at the highest level. But in an effort to maximize the 22-year-old’s plate appearances, Washington opted to reassign him to Double-A Harrisburg where through 65 PA he’s hit .292/.462/.500 with 2 homers. With Zimmerman shelved, Rendon becomes the starting third baseman, and you should certainly grab him if he’s still available. Featuring a plus-plus hit tool and an advanced approach at the dish, he’ll help immediately in AVG and OBP categories, and he might even toss in a few homers. For more detail on Rendon, here’s my Nationals’ top ten, where he ranked #1. Also, check out this Scouting the Unknown post from last August.

The Run DownThe Rays’ player development systems have always been top-notch, and for the past several years, they’ve maintained one of the better farm systems in the game. As a matter of timing more than anything else — some bad luck, too (see Beckham) — the system was a little lighter than usual in the high-impact department near the end of last season. They were growing older, and more expensive at the big league level. It appeared that they were deviating from Andrew Friedman’s operational model — a patient, bottom-up approach that had discovered and nurtured talent better than just about any other organization — that had made them a year-to-year contender in baseball’s toughest division. And then the James Shields deal happened and the natural order was restored to the baseball universe. All of a sudden, Wil Myers became a Ray, and the once-lacking high-impact department was replenished with one of the more high-impacty dudes in the minors. Beyond Myers, Tampa added MLB-ready pitching depth in Jake Odorizzi. They also nabbed Mike Montgomery on the cheap — sure, he pitched like a pile of hot garbage in 2012, but one year does not ruin a prospect. When considering this top ten back in October, I was kinda worried about having to cover a slew high-upside 18-year-olds who hadn’t yet played outside of instructional league. Thank you, Andrew Friedman, for making this post more interesting.

By the numbers, Manny Machado struggled through his first two months of Double-A baseball. It seemed like most nights I looked at Bowie’s box, Machado’s line was 0-fer. But then I’d read something from the O’s about how his current production was of no concern, that he was tweaking his approach, that scouts are still encouraged. Please, blog, may I have some more?

I spend most of my time here focusing on prospects who’re nearing their big league debuts. Today, though, I’m gonna be discussing some guys a little further out. In these rankings, talent trumps all – although, I broke that rule a few times based on lack of experience (see Bundy, Sano, Starling). Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Run Down
Two really interesting factoids from Baseball America’s preview on the 2009 Cubs, factoid number 1 – “Chicago hasn’t gotten long-term production out of a first-round pick since Kerry Wood in 1995; factoid number 2 – other than Geovany Soto, who as drafted in round 11 in 2001, they “haven’t developed a position player it signed into an All-Star since they drafted Joe Girardi in 1986.” With a couple of trades this past year (Sean Gallagher and catcher Josh Donaldson for Rich Harden; Jose Ceda (#4 ranked prospect) for Kevin Gregg) the Cubs traded away a third of their top ten prospects. Please, blog, may I have some more?